Over the weekend I traveled with
Scott Phillips to a small town I used to live in to see
Tom Franklin read from his latest,
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter. Also attending the event was
John Hornor Jacobs, all the way up from Little Rock and
William Harrison, author of (
Roller Ball Murder &
Burton and Speke, the basis’s for
Rollerball and
Mountains of the Moon respectively). Good trip. Looking at doing a trip out to Mr. Franklin’s haunts in Mississippi soon for some writerly thing that may be happening. I’ve never been, but
Rod Norman assures me it’s a swell place and it sounds like it probably is. Aside from the late
Barry Hannah and some cat named Grisham, Franklin,
Jack Pendarvis,
John Brandon and
William Boyle also call it home. Must be something in the water.
My first exposure to Franklin was in
Murdaland magazine and this week
Murdaland’s publisher,
Cortright McMeel’s debut novel,
Short was published and over
at Ransom Notes, I’m giving it the once over. I made a comment in the piece about Short being an interquel, (middle chapter of a trilogy linking two previously unrelated books or films – thanks
Jeff Bayer & Eric Snider – of the Movie BS podcast), between
The Smartest Guys in the Room and
Fight Club, and I’m curious to hear from anybody else with an opinion on the matter. Sometimes I pull this stuff outta my ass, sometimes I’m brilliant, but hell if I can tell the difference.
For some reason, I just go on accumulating books that I’m never going to be able to read. Someday the apocalypse will come and when electricity can’t be spared for television, I’ll have plenty of books to keep me occupied. In the last week I’ve added titles by
Ken Bruen, Reed Farrel Coleman, Max Allan Collins, Tom Franklin, Chester Himes, Grant Jerkins, Terrill Lankford, Joe Lansdale, Jonathan Lethem, Jonathan Maberry, Cormac McCarthy, Jim Nisbet, Chris Offutt, Robert Olmstead, Tom Piccirilli, Jason Pinter, Theresa Schwegel and
Jason Starr to my shelves. I also picked up the new anthology,
Damn Near Dead 2, edited by
Bill Crider. Since I’m so strapped for shelf space, I’m giving away two books by
Scott Phillips this week. Just leave a comment on this post and Friday I’ll draw two names.
And if you don’t “win” one, don’t worry. You can still get a free copy of his latest,
Rut from
The Concord Free Press if you make a request. They’ll even ship it to you gratis. All they ask is that you make a donation to a charitable cause in the amount of your choosing and they employ the honor system. But hurry, they’re running out.